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Animated Atrocities 133/Transcript
I am impressed. Like, actually impressed. This is what, episode 133? And I've never reviewed a video game cartoon. Technically, I reviewed Bubsy and Battletoads, but they were just pilots and not their own full series. So yeah, this is the first full cartoon based on a video game that I'm reviewing, which surprises me on multiple levels. And I spend most of my spare time playing video games and I've even taken a hobbyist interest in designing them. I mean, I've come close to doing something like this; I've reviewed shows that place inside a video game like Da Boom Crew and shows that reference video game culture, but I've never reviewed an actual adaptation. Which is weird, because, well, video game anything that's not video games tend to be notorious for being horrible. ... Whether it's a video game movie, a video game live-action television show, a video game cartoon. Video game adaptations have a storied history of being awful. It seems that the only way to get a video game adaptation anywhere close to acceptable is either make up a video game to base it on like Wreck-It Ralph or almost entirely forget that the video game even exists like with the Angry Birds movie. Not every video game adaptation is horrible. We eventually got some decent ones like Viva Pinata and Pokemon. But in both of those cases, they were both from the ground up to be video game adaptations designed alongside the video games that they were promoting. There are many reasons that video game adaptations tend to fail. But one of the big reasons is that this idea of adapting video games into cartoons... It originally kicked off in the 80's and the early 90's. Back then, video games didn't really put much stock into their story. Most of them were "defeat the dragon; save the princess." Sure, there were RPGs around that time, but the story of the original Dragon Quest is "slay the dragon; rescue the princess." If you wanna see how far that was stretched, the very first cartoon based on a video game was Pac-Man. How do you make a television show based on Pac-Man? Yeah, if I ever do a 1980's marathon, there will definitely be a video game adaptation review. Probably Captain N. That being said, lack of a heavy-duty plot isn't always the problem. There are video games that put a lot of effort into their stories. A lot of AAA video games nowadays are basically movies with a controller. It should be a no-brainer. But even video games that probably could make very good movies end up making shit movies. But even video games with great stories and once that are heavily story based end up making shit movies. ...Hey, I said video games with great stories! I am firmly convinced that the only reason that Quantic Dreams makes video games is because, in any other medium, they'd get laughed out of business. Their stories give Shyamalan a run for their money on how convoluted and stupid they are. No, I'm talking about video games like Silent Hill. That game should've been a great movie! But it became a pretty awful movie. In the video games, Silent Hill has a sequel that has character development, the greatest twist in video game history, and it touches on the darkest sides of humanity. The Silent Hill movie has a sequel where they try to jumpscare the audience with a Pop Tart. If I ever start doing live-action movie reviews, those are some of the first ones on the chopping block. But even beyond that, Alone in the Dark made a shit movie. Final Fantasy made two shit movies. Resident Evil made a bunch of shit movies. It's telling when the best video game adaptation of all time is based on Animal Crossing. I'm not even joking. The best video game adaptation that didn't just make up a video game and is actually caring about its franchise is the Animal Crossing movie. But we don't get to talk about that video game adaptation today. Today, we get to talk about the Donkey Kong Country cartoon. ... If you're wondering, the plot of the game is evil guys stole all of Donkey Kong's bananas, so he goes on a quest to get them back, with Diddy Kong. In the second game, Donkey Kong gets kidnapped, so another character Diddy needs to defeat the bad guy, King K. Rool, and rescue Donkey Kong. And then there was a third game that I've never played and the show started airing before it so I don't really care. The point is the Donkey Kong Country games weren't really known for their storytelling. What they were left for was their unique tag team gameplay and their graphics. It was one of the few games on the Super Nintendo that rendered 3D graphics, making it one of the best looking platformers on the system. The cartoon tried to do something similar; using 3D graphics. To, um... diminishing returns. Here in 2017, the graphics of the Donkey Kong Country cartoon look awful. Like, ridiculously awful and broken. It feels like something that would've been made by a free program a decade ago. And to be honest, I'm not going to give the show too much slack for that. This show came out in 1996, and while it wasn't the first 3D cartoon ever made, it was one of the first few. Reboot came out only two years prior. To get us where we are today, a bunch of people have to put their faith in new technology. Technology that they don't fully know the capabilities of, like making a cartoon entirely in 3D animation. And it's not always going to look the best in hindsight. Going with the medium of video games, we would not have VR today if so many people didn't put their faith in motion controls. Even if the concept of motion controls broke and ruined so many games that otherwise had tons of potential. Back in the day, a 3D cartoon was a big advance in technology. Toy Story aired a year prior, but that was made by a big company that specifically tried to harness its technology. Video game adaptors are often given a very abstract concept, a handbook of do not's, and a middle finger. Which is probably why there's so many terrible adaptations. Even though the graphics do look really bad, and have some of the most uncanny expressions you'll ever see in a 3D cartoon, I'm not going to give them much flak in that realm. No, what I AM going to give this show flak for is literally everything else, because this show is really, really stupid. You might think that a fight over bananas wouldn't sustain a cartoon, but then you realize that Elmer Fudd wants to hunt Bugs Bunny. Concept of equal simplicity. Known as one of the best cartoons of all time. The Eds want jawbreakers. Concept of equal simplicity. Over a hundred episodes over that. Dexter's Lab. Dexter has a lab. He does stuff in it. A fight over bananas is simple enough to sustain a cartoon. We have a genre of animation called the cat and mouse cartoon, where the entire premise of many different cartoons is one character tries to beat the shit out of another character. In this show, they have something called the Crystal Coconut, which is more or less the Triforce from the Zelda cartoon. Because when I think Donkey Kong, I think that it needs to have the lore of Zelda. The Crystal Coconut can do literally anything ever. They state this in the very first episode of the show. It tells the future, it teleports things, it supplies power, and it grants wishes. It's like the Fairly OddParents on crack cocaine with no limitations whatsoever. Well, there is a limit on the wishes. The limit is Cranky Kong says that it's too dangerous to ever be used, which is not really how you limit an object's power, at least in this kind of cartoon. I'm sure that Dexter's Lab is too dangerous to ever be used too, but watching the chaos ensue is kind of what the fun is. To be fair, this show does have quite a bit of chaos. Like, people gave me suggestions for various episodes and every single one that I saw just impressed me in a different kind of way to the bizarre lengths that it'd go. To the point where I don't think that one review of this show is enough. I don't say this often for shows that aren't currently running, but I think that I might have to come back to this one at some point in the future. For now, let's stick with "The Big Switch-A-Roo." The episode starts with Donkey Kong getting ready to use Funky's plane to write Candy a love letter. He wants to do this because he's celebrating the anniversary of the first time that he... broke a date with Candy. ... Hmm... I wonder... Files theme Oh, wait, of course, it's foreshadowing! I mean, Donkey Kong is celebrating the anniversary of something not important, so Diddy says that he's like a robot. These points do not connect! You know, unless the episode's about Donkey Kong becoming a robot. Actually, even then, not really. No. Meanwhile, Cranky Kong is working on a robot. He presses a button that makes a PNG of lightning appear over the cartoon. Crank goes on to give the robot orders. Then he stops to talk about his mind switching helmet. Can you guess what this episode is going to be about? I mean, all of the clues to the entirety of the plot were so subtle that you probably shouldn't feel bad if you couldn't get it. Actually yes, if you couldn't get it, you should feel bad. It's like the first two minutes of this episode is a Wikipedia synopsis. Meanwhile, this guy named Bluster, who isn't in the games at all, says that he's upgrading the technology of his factory. ... Because the employee that works for you wouldn't know that you're the boss. I'm sorry that I keep harping on about this, even this early into the episode, but every line of dialogue in this show is like that. It treats kids like they're too stupid to figure out what's going on, and that kind of writing really drives me up a wall. Does Mr. Krabs say that he's SpongeBob's boss in every single episode? No, because something like that is blatantly obvious, even to kids! Bluster here says that this robot can do more work than Candy, and not have any of the downsides of having a living employee. Huh, I didn't know that this show would be tackling the issue of low-income workers being replaced by the advancement of technology. A harsh, real-world theme that didn't come to the forefront of public consciousness until... the kids watching this grew up and began getting low-income jobs that started getting replaced by technology. Maybe this show IS good at foreshadowing... Candy says that she can train even the laziest ape on the island to make barrels faster than that robot. The ape in question is Donkey Kong. Because going on a super long quest to get your stuff back... it just screams lazy. If Bluster wins, Candy goes on a picnic with him. She probably wouldn't accept this bet if, you know, the plot wasn't going to begin thriving her favor. I mean, most rational writing would pick Candy herself to go against the robot. That's how this plot tends to work. Meanwhile, far away in a... styrofoam box... King K. Rool and his minions have a little discussion. He's making muffins. This doesn't have any relevance to anything; I just wanted you to know that he's making muffins. He learns that Cranky has made a device that transfers knowledge from brain to brain. I'm guessing that if he used this contraption, nothing would happen. Because is the plan that his "brain" comes up with. ... Can I get a facepalm, please? Okay, um... Where-- Where do I begin? I.. I don't even know how to say this, but... books do not have brains! I don't even know how to argue this one. I-I really don't. Books do not have brains! What else is there to say? The books contain their knowledge in the pages, but you don't need a machine to get the knowledge out of books. To get the knowledge out of books, you have to read them! And this brain switching machine can't do that! What the fuck is with 90's cartoons and their stupidity regarding brains? In the last one, brains did literally nothing. In this one, brains exist in books! I understand that back in the 90's, we didn't understand as much about the human body and anatomy as we do today. I mean for example, up until surprisingly recently, the medical community thought that babies couldn't feel pain. It was up until 1987 that the American Academy of Pediatrics decided that it was unethical to treat infants up to 15 months without anesthetics, and even in 2015, "babies can feel pain" was shocking enough to actually make headlines. You know what, this plotline is much more believable now. I was talking about something fun. Let's go back to that. But seriously, if you have an infant that's going to have surgery, it might be purgenant to demand they use anesthesia. Donkey Kong crashes his plane and this just coincidentally puts a helmet on top of the robot. Unfortunately, he finds that there are no bananas anywhere in Cranky's lab. He says that there's nothing worse than this, period; it is the worst thing ever! But then he forgets about the worst possible thing and puts a helmet on and starts playing around. This causes him to switch brains with the robot. ... Wait a minute, robots don't have brains either! Then again, I don't think Donkey Kong has a brain either because he doesn't realize that he switched bodies with the robot. And of course, DK still has the same voice that he had as DK, even though our voice doesn't come from our brains; it comes from our vocal chords. And I'm sure that a robot doesn't speak in the same way that an organic living thing does. I mean, when Finn ate a computer, his voice was at least autotuned. ... Sometime later, Cranky comes and finds DK's body asleep. How a robotic mind CPU thing understands how to maintain a human unconscious function like breathing and heartbeat I won't understand. And Bluster basically kidnaps DK's body. In all honesty, I think that he should be a little bit worried about how his bet is going to go down. Then again, if the writing is competent, Bluster wouldn't know that DK and the robot had switched bodies. And that could be used to 1-up him in the bet and make him look like a fool. Diddy comes by and finds the robot. He hears DK but doesn't connect the fact that DK is the robot until DK falls over. ... Whoa, that commercial is seriously this old? When did it come out? ... Holy shit, 1989? This episode came out over half a decade later, so... whoa. Even in this 90's cartoon, this reference was still old, out of date, and cliche. What does that make the things that reference it today? Category:Transcripts Category:Season 5